Qantas launches social media-driven travel website Hooroo
The Qantas Group has launched a new social commerce site which allows users to discover and share new holiday destinations with their social networks and then book accommodation online directly from the site.
It is thought to be the first platform that connects social discovery with commerce in the travel category.
Tourism Australia boss Andrew McEvoy has backed the new site, which has launched with a digital campaign by Badjar Ogilvy Melbourne.
New research from Tourism Australia supports the business model, with results indicating social media updates from friends directly influenced 20% of those surveyed to book a domestic holiday.
“It is thought to be the first platform that connects social discovery with commerce in the travel category.”
As opposed to Tripadvisor and all the clones? Qantas has made the classic mistake of creating an online destination that doesn’t add any value to what people are already doing.
I’m pretty sure I already log onto Tripadvisor via Facebook and find/book great deals straight from there if the destination has been favourably reviewed…
Way to go Tourism Australia!
Backing the wrong horse (again) and endorsing a thoroughly unoriginal and uninspired idea which shows all the hallmark stupidity of the dreadful Kangaroo Island Celebrity Twitter Endorsement Scandal.
And let’s not forget the cringeworthy jingoistic title not heard in common usage since August 1972.
Can Qantas get anything right?…although I blame the agency for this too clever by half word play.
TripAdvisor already does this…and so much better.
So tell us Mr McEvoy, how much did this cost the Australian taxpayer?
It kind of sounds like a racist saying the word ‘Hello’ with an ‘Asian’ accent.
I like the name Hooroo! It’s very Aussie; reminds me of Don Burke and Zoe Paulsen.
When I first heard this Hooroo reminded me of Team America.
Maybe it’s Qantas and Tourism Australia’s attempt to capture the North Korean tourist market?
I love this idea. Despite TripAdvisor and the like being around, I don’t think anyone has nailed this combination of social, purchase and planning – good luck TA and QF, hope it is every bit as good as it sounds!
http://www.gogobot.com well funded out of the valley and a real social travel community of 1m users + already.
The really hilarious part is that this has been launched by an airline and yet I can’t find anywhere on the site to buy plane tickets – the one thing that wuold have really seperated Hooroo from other travel sites…
A more appropriate name for this site would have been ‘BINTA’ – ‘but it’s not trip advisor’
It feels very well aligned with that giant flop of a search engine that was launched to try and compete with Google..
Isn’t that the Hulu website in Japan?